This roundup has Steam Next Fest brain in the best way: weird sports, weirder mystery bots, Vanillaware‑style brawling, and a bus game that probably violates the Geneva Conventions.
Big swings and early access
Tricky Madness is the closest anyone’s gotten to filling the SSX Tricky‑shaped hole in people’s brains so far. Solo dev Nathan Dearth is going all in on PS2‑era excess: huge air, absurd trick chains, neon night runs, and a tone that sits somewhere between SSX and Tony Hawk. It’s already in early access on Steam with three of eight tracks and four riders, 10,000 copies sold, and a roadmap that stretches “about a year or two” while the community helps sand off the edges.
On the other end of the spectrum, Menace is a grimy, turn‑based tactics game from the Battle Brothers devs that leans hard into Starship Troopers, Aliens, and squad management. You’re juggling operations across hostile planets, upgrading a battered ship, and micro‑managing squad leaders. The early access build already has dozens of hours of content, but reviews note that the economy and difficulty curve still need tuning, so treat it as a long beta rather than a finished campaign.
Stylish weirdos
Gun Nose is another standout pick: a GBA‑inspired top‑down action‑mystery about a robot detective with a literal gun for a face hunting serial murder‑bots in the city of Ironwood. Cases are semi‑procedural with different victims, suspects, and clues each time, and you’re bouncing between interrogations, evidence analysis, and real‑time combat while your wisecracking AI buddy chirps in your ear. It’s basically a grimy cyberpunk Phoenix Wright that occasionally explodes.
Donutal goes for a different flavor of stress. Arc System Works is making what is basically Papers, Please in space: you’re a “Chief Xeno Inspector” screening up to eight aliens at once as they chat, accuse, and deflect in group interviews. You’re trying to pick out who will actually help Earth and who might quietly end it, and your calls reshape in‑game news and story branches. It looks sharp, but there’s already backlash over limited AI‑touched art in an in‑game news feed, so file this under “one to watch, and maybe interrogate a bit yourself.”
SCOPECREEP is a “one more run” kind of game. It mixes slow, circular tower defense with an active incremental layer: you orbit a central creature, exorcise spirits with a torch, then dump souls into an absurd upgrade web between runs. After a few loops, it blossoms into a screen‑filling mess of abilities and meters, but people who’ve tried the demo say it lands in that weirdly meditative space where your brain turns off and numbers go up.
Big brands and bigger nostalgia
The king of deckbuilders is taking another lap: Slay the Spire 2 hits Steam early access on March 5, adding a new character, four‑player co‑op, and a fresh campaign while keeping the core loop intact. If you bounced off imitators but still think about Defect runs at 2 a.m., this is the one you mark on the calendar.
Konami’s back in the 2D vampire business with Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse. It’s the first brand‑new side‑scrolling Castlevania since 2008, built by Evil Empire and Motion Twin, and launches sometime this year on all major platforms for about 40 bucks.
CyberConnect2 is also reviving .hack with .hack//Z.E.R.O., an action RPG timed with the series’ 30th anniversary. It’s console‑only for now, and the pitch is that real‑world segments will matter just as much as the MMO‑within‑the‑game, with enough context baked in that newcomers don’t have to do homework on the PS2 originals.
SEGA, meanwhile, announced Puyo Puyo Trainer, which is not another versus puzzler for us, but a simplified Puyo Puyo for nursing and welfare facilities that doubles as cognitive training software. Controls and modes are pared down, stats are tracked for each player, and the whole thing is meant to make leisure time and social interaction easier in care environments. It’s a neat reminder that “gamifying brain health” does not have to mean subscription scams.
Odds, ends, and vehicular homicide
Aphelion is the next narrative swing from Don’t Nod: a linear, chapter‑based sci‑fi adventure where two ESA astronauts crash on an ice planet and run into a sound‑hunting “Nemesis” creature straight out of Alien: Isolation fanfic. You alternate between climbing‑heavy Ariane segments and more grounded exploration with injured crewmate Thomas, with their actions subtly affecting each other’s paths chapter to chapter.
Mad Bus Simulator is exactly what it sounds like: a Japanese indie about driving a city bus like it’s a Fury Road war rig. You still have to keep riders comfortable and stick to schedules, but outside the cabin, you’re ramming cars into dust, bolting rocket launchers and saw blades onto the chassis, and basically acting out every intrusive thought you’ve ever had in traffic.
Astro Protocol finally gives time‑starved strategy nerds a break. It’s a turn‑based space 4X where full matches are built to wrap in about an hour, with tight hex‑based combat, six factions, and a hundred‑plus techs and anomalies to keep runs fresh without turning into a week‑long save file.
SaviorS: Oath of the Blade is pure Vanillaware energy, with big, painterly 2D sprites, beefy melee combat, and a side‑view fantasy world that instantly recalls Princess Crown and Dragon’s Crown in how it frames characters and enemies on screen. It is not a Vanillaware project, but it is very obviously chasing that same style almost no one attempts, which makes it one to watch if you miss arcade‑style brawling with stat sheets attached.
Look Mum No Computer is easily the strangest game in this batch, in a good way. Polygon describes it as a top‑down twin‑stick roguelite set inside corrupted electronics, starring Kosmo (a sentient synth backpack) and real‑world DIY synth maniac Sam Battle, a.k.a. Look Mum No Computer. Combat looks like Hyper Light Drifter colliding with Enter the Gungeon, but the twist is that you are constantly collecting components to build new synth modules, then actually poking at those modules in Sam’s in‑game workshop to remix the soundtrack between runs, complete with short live‑action clips of him building the hardware in real life.
Frontier Legends is aiming to be a more open Red Dead-style option this spring. It is an open‑world Wild West survival‑crafting RPG where you arrive as a new settler, juggle thirst, hunger, and weather, and slowly turn a basic frontier camp into a functioning town while taming horses and fending off bandits and wildlife. On top of base building and resource gathering, there are quests, ancient ruins, legendary treasures, and full co‑op, with the option to either work together or rob each other blind, and early access is planned for this spring on Steam and Epic with a free demo coming during Steam’s upcoming horse‑themed event.
Screamer rounds things out by turning every race into a brawl. It’s an anime‑styled combat racer where each car’s “Echo” system converts defensive meter into offensive Strikes and Overdrives, and a surprisingly deep rules editor lets you toggle almost every mechanic on or off. Hands‑on previews say the resource loop forces you to actually think instead of just spamming items, which could give it legs beyond the usual “fun for a weekend” kart clone.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, there’s also a G.I. Joe Snake Eyes game that lost its studio but not its pulse; Hasbro says the project is still alive while they figure out who actually makes it.
What other games have you found from Steam’s Next Fest or elsewhere? Let me know in the comments below!
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